75 Mind-Blowing McDonald’s Facts

With billions of people served, McDonald's has played a fascinating role shaping international culture since its first restaurant opened. Here, a compilation of surprising McDonald's trivia even its most loyal customers may not know.

istock/ermingut

The Inception and the Legacy

1. Seventy-five years ago, in 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened up the first McDonald’s restaurant—a BBQ joint—in San Bernardino, California (at left; it’s now a museum). Eight years later, they switched to burgers, shakes, potato chips, and pie. The McDonalds purchased several Multi-mixers for use in their establishment, and when Multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc visited, he was impressed by their success and efficiency. Kroc purchased franchise rights from the brothers. In 1955, he opened his first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. Looking for more McDonald’s facts? This is the first McDonald’s menu ever.

2. McDonald’s first drive-thru opened in 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. What inspired the then-revolutionary concept? The restaurant was located near a military base, and soldiers were not allowed to leave their cars while wearing fatigues. Check out how the McDonald’s menu has changed throughout the years.

4. All those dimes and pennies do add up: In 2013, Ronald McDonald House Charities—the nonprofit organization that is McDonald’s charity of choice—raised around $450 million. It used those funds to help nearly 9 million children and their families worldwide. Today, RMHC has nearly 300 local chapters in 58 countries and regions.

5. McDonald’s invested in Chipotle in 1998, back when the fast-Mexican chain consisted of 16 restaurants. By 2006, McDonald’s owned 90 percent of Chipotle—which had grown to 500 locations—but it sold its stake in order to focus on McDonald’s.

6. The average McDonald’s drive-thru transaction took roughly three minutes, or 189.49 seconds, according to one recent study; the fast-food leader was Wendy’s with a 133.63-second turnaround time.

istock/patty_c

McDonald’s Facts: All About the Arches

8. Founder Richard McDonald first sketched the Golden Arches as an architectural feature to attract customers in cars looking from the roadside, but it took five more years for the arches to be linked into an M (shown at right, at a present-day restaurant in Downey, California, the oldest one still in operation). Did you know there might be a hidden sexual meaning behind McDonald’s gold arches?

10. The McDonald’s in Sedona, Arizona, has the world’s only turquoise arches—the owners of that franchise were told that they needed to make the location more in keeping with the distinct desert environment. The blue was chosen to echo the sky, and the building is more orange and red to resemble the surrounding terrain. Read more about it here.

McDonald’s Facts from Around the World

11. While many international McDonald’s look the same as their American counterparts, their menus contain unique items that reflect local tastes. Some examples: nurnburger, or three bratwursts on a bun (Germany); creamy stars, or deep-fried star-shaped pieces of cheese (Italy); McFalafel and McKebab (Israel); McSpaghetti, or pasta served with Chicken McNuggets on the side (Philippines); McRice burger, or a burger in which rice patties are used instead of a bun (Singapore); quiche de quejo, or cheese quiche (Brazil); red bean pie (Hong Kong); McAloo Tikki burger, or a spiced-potato burger (India). Pssst: There’s a reason why Coke tastes so much better at McDonald’s.

13. Since 1996, skiers have been able to schuss into the world’s only ski-thru McDonald’s in the Lindvallen resort area in Sweden.

14. Many people probably wish they could dine on McDonald’s on a flight instead of airline food; for now, they’ll have to settle for dining at a New Zealand McDonald’s, which includes an actual retired aircraft as part of the restaurant.

16. In all the world, there is one floating McDonald’s. Known as the McBarge, it’s in Vancouver, Canada. It was built for and served food at the 1986 World’s Fair, but it is now abandoned. Perhaps it should open as a sail-thru?

17. The Queen of England owns approximately $11 billion of real estate in the United Kingdom; among her holdings is a McDonald’s near Buckingham Palace. So far, she has yet to dine there—but she may be more of a drive-thru type.

18. Golden wedding arches: McDonald’s in Hong Kong offers a variety of wedding packages. The deluxe package, which costs around $1,200, includes a two-hour rental of a decorated McDonald’s location, 50 invitations, McDonald’s gifts for 50 guests, a pair of McDonald’s balloon wedding rings, a bridal bouquet, apple pie display, and an emcee.

19. In the U.K., McDonald’s has launched a program to recycle its employees’ uniforms. Some of the material will be re-spun into fiber to make new uniforms; the rest will be shredded and used to stuff mattresses.

20. In another innovation, McDonald’s Hungary and the advertising agency DDB Budapest recently unveiled the BagTray: a paper bag that has a reinforced cardboard tray at its bottom. By ripping off a strip of the bag, you can detach a sturdy tray.

23. You don’t need a passport to try exotic McDonald’s offerings. In some parts of America, McDonald’s restaurants sell their own specialty items. In the summer, you can get a McLobster roll at restaurants in New England. But Hawaii takes the prize: Choices include Saimin, a Hawaiian noodle soup with fish cake, nori, char siu pork, and sliced scrambled eggs; a taro-root pie; and a breakfast platter with Spam or Portuguese sausage as the meat options.

24. A McDonald’s franchise owner in Monfort Heights, Ohio noticed that residents in his highly Catholic town did not eat hamburgers or cheeseburgers during Lent so he created a meat-free alternative, the Filet-o-Fish, which swam onto menus in 1962. Today, 23 percent of all Filet-o-Fish sales are thought to occur during Lent.

25. The fish in the filet was originally halibut; now it’s wild-caught Atlantic pollock.

26. The chain’s worst-selling item may have been the Hula burger. Invented by Ray Kroc as a meatless alternative for Catholics on Lent, it consisted of a grilled piece of pineapple with a slice of cheese in a bun. It lasted a brief while in 1962. Here are the failed McDonald’s menu items you’ve probably never heard of.

27. McDonald’s McGriddle was invented by product developer Tom Ryan because he wanted a handheld breakfast item that was both sweet and savory. He is the Dr. Frankenstein of fast food. In an earlier job at Pizza Hut, he created stuffed-crust pizza and the Meat Lovers, Veggie Lovers, and Cheese Lovers pizzas. He is now the founder and chief concept officer at Smashburger.

29. Some discerning diners believe that the Coke served at McDonald’s tastes better than it does at other places. They may be onto something: Only at McDonald’s is the Coke syrup delivered in stainless steel tanks to preserve its freshness; elsewhere, it’s transported in plastic bags.

30. At a grand total of 1,880 calories, the 40-piece Chicken McNuggets are the highest calorie item on the regular menu. That’s more calories than many adults should consume in a single day. Find out the 5 healthiest things you can order at a McDonald’s.

32. The McRib, which debuted in the chain’s restaurants in 1981, was invented in part because chicken farmers couldn’t keep up with the demand for McNuggets.

33. There are no ribs in McRib; it’s a patty made from pork shoulder meat.

34. The McRib was removed from the McDonald’s menu in 1985 due to its lack of popularity. But thanks to a loyal cult following, it came back in 1989 and was offered until 2005 in the chain’s restaurants in much of the world. From 2006 on, it’s been available for a few months every year. However, all along it has been a menu staple in one country: Germany.

35. According to Reddit users, you can get a Big Mac for half the price if you order a McDouble without mustard or ketchup and add shredded lettuce and special sauce. The only difference will be the lack of a third bun.

36. Those in the know say that McDonald’s has a secret menu. The most popular items include the McLeprechaun shake (a chocolate shake mixed with their seasonal Shamrock Shake), the McKinley Mac (a Big Mac made with quarter-pounder patties), and the Land, Air, and Sea burger (a McChicken patty, beef patty and Filet-o-Fish patty combined). Here are the McDonald’s secret menu items you need to know.

37. In an effort to provide a more customized experience, the “Create Your Taste” initiative allows diners to use tablet-like kiosks to pick different buns, cheeses, toppings, and sauces for their burger. It’s expected to roll out at 2,000 locations in the United States this year, or about one in seven McDonald’s in the United States.

38. Customer Moshe Tamssot posted a YouTube video that showed him creating the biggest burger possible with a “Create Your Taste.” Although he was limited to two quarter-pound beef patties, he was able to add 10 times all the other ingredients. His sandwich was topped by 10 slices of bacon, 30 slices of cheese, and 10 servings of guacamole, tomato, pickles, lettuce, mushrooms, jalapeno peppers, raw onions, and grilled onions (not to mention a variety of sauces). The sandwich weighed 3.8 pounds and cost $24.89. We believe he is still digesting it.

Ronald McDonald Facts

40. While there are disputes about who invented the Ronald McDonald character, Willard Scott—who later became famous for being The Today Show weatherman— was the first to portray him in TV ads.

41. Scott was fired from being Ronald McDonald after he was deemed to be “too fat.”

42. In Japan, the character is known as Donald McDonald, due to the lack of a clear “R” sound in Japanese.

43. The original Ronald McDonald wore a yellow-and-red striped suit, which he often accessorized with wearing a tray bearing a hamburger, fries, and milkshake as a hat.

44. Ronald’s newest wardrobe, which debuted last summer, consists of yellow cargo pants and a vest and a red-and-white striped rugby shirt; on special occasions, he tops it all with a red blazer emblazoned with golden arches on the front pocket. His new look was created by theatrical costume designer Ann Hould-Ward, who won a Tony for Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast.

McDonald’s Facts: Crime, Punishment, and Some Bizarre Lawsuits

46. Shaneka Torres of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is currently serving a three-to-seven-year prison sentence after she was convicted of shooting a bullet in a McDonald’s drive-thru window after she failed to receive bacon on her burger. She has also been banned from the restaurant for life.

48. After starring in a McDonald’s-bashing ad for Burger King, the then-4-year-old actress Sarah Michelle Gellar was named in a lawsuit by the fast food giant—and was banned from McDonald’s.

49. While the best-known McDonald’s lawsuit in America is the one involving scalding coffee, the company is known in the U.K. for a different legal matter. In 1994, two members of the London Greenpeace group were sued by McDonald’s for distributing pamphlets that claimed the company was responsible for hunger in the Third World, deforestation, food poisoning, cruel treatment of animals, and paying low wages. The trial—dubbed the McLibel case—still stands as the longest in English history at 300 days, generating 20,000 pages of trial transcripts. The defendants were found guilty of making some libelous statements and ordered to pay a fine. But in 2005, they brought their case to the European Court, which declared that the case was in breach of the right to a fair trial and right to freedom of expression (mainly due to the unavailability of legal aid for the Greenpeace members).

50. Children’s television producers Sid and Marty Kroftt sued McDonald’s in 1973, saying that McDonaldland ripped off the “concept and feel” of their TV show H.R. Pufnstuf. McDonald’s was ordered to pay the brothers one million dollars.

istock/Magone

McDonald’s Facts: Amazing Feats

51. In the Guinness Book of World Records, one record is unlikely to be beaten anytime soon: “Most Big Macs Consumed.” When Don Gorske of Wisconsin set the record in 2008, he’d already consumed 22,477 sandwiches. But since he eats two a day, he’s had over 27,500 of them by now. He had his first at age 18 in 1972 (it cost 49 cents). He liked the sandwich so much that after eating it, he had eight more of them—for a one-day total of nine, a limit he has never exceeded. Both his weight and cholesterol are said to be normal.

52. The world’s largest Big Mac can be found in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, at the Big Mac Museum (which bills itself “the most tasteful museum in the world”). While the mega-Mac is inedible—it’s a 14-foot-tall statue—hungry visitors can eat the real thing at the on-premises McDonald’s restaurant.

53. Mike Fountaine holds the record for owning the most McDonald’s related memorabilia. His 75,000-item collection—which includes buttons, uniforms, cups, and Happy Meal boxes and toys—spills over nine rooms of his Pennsylvania home. In 1968, a then-15-year-old Fountaine began working at the Golden Arches and began his collection one year later. Today he owns two McDonald’s restaurants.

54. The world’s largest McDonald’s PlayPlace is in the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. It includes a 500 gallon aquarium, waterfall, and 100 arcade games.

55. A limited edition—one out of 200 produced in the world—500 ml bottle of McDonald’s Big Mac Special Sauce sold in Australia on eBay this year for $20,600 in Australian dollars, or around $16,144 US. One hundred percent of the profits went to Ronald McDonald House Charities.

57. In 2012, Rebekah Speight of Nebraska auctioned off a truly one-of-a-kind possession on eBay: a chicken McNugget that resembled George Washington. The winning bid was $8,100, which Speight planned to donate to her church’s youth camp. At the time of sale, the nugget was already three years old. In general, eBay bans the sale of expired food products, but the company made an exception.

58. McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys. It gives away around 1.5 billion toys each year with Happy Meals.

59. Jamaican runner Usain Bolt claims to have eaten around 1,000 chicken McNuggets during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where McDonald’s had an outpost in the Olympic Village. It was the lunch (or dinner) of champions: At those games, he won three gold medals and set three world records. This is the secret that makes their apple pies taste so good.

62. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “McJob” is “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector.” McDonald’s threatened to sue to change the definition, but ultimately responded with a clever U.K. ad campaign that extolled the company’s employee benefits. It ended with the line: “Not bad for a McJob.” This is how much McDonald’s workers really make.

63. On a corporate level, McDonald’s has some pretty spectacular benefits. Employees get an extra week of paid time off in the years when they reach an anniversary ending with a “5” (5, 15, 25, etc.). They’re eligible for an eight-week paid sabbatical for every 10 years worked.

64. In 1961, the company opened Hamburger University to train its executive employees; today, there are more than 2750,000 graduates. The original campus is in Oak Brook, Illinois, where McDonald’s is headquartered. Other campuses are in Tokyo, London, Sydney, Munich, Sao Paolo and Shanghai. All together around the world, Hamburger U. employs more than 60 full-time college professors.

65. McDonald’s holds its own version of American Idol. Called the Voice of McDonald’s, the competition shines the spotlight on the vocal talent of its 1.8 million employees. In its most recent contest, 58,000 McWorkers from 63 countries entered. Lucy Ospitia of Bucaramanga, Colombia, won the $25,000 grand prize. Rocky Rosabal from the Philippines won second prize ($17,500); third prize ($12,500) went to Ashlae Nelms from Illinois.

A Pop Culture Icon

66. The Economist created the “Big Mac Index” in 1986 as a shorthand way to determine whether a country’s currency is inflated. The index uses the international prices of a Big Mac, a globally available food product, to illustrate the differences in monetary value between nations. It’s still referenced today. In January, the average price for a Big Mac was $4.79 in the America and $7.54 in Switzerland. (All prices are in U.S. dollars.) Russia and Ukraine were among the cheapest places at which to buy a Big Mac, $1.36 and $1.20, respectively.

67. In the 2003 documentary Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock chronicled his 30-day, all-McDonald’s diet. At month’s end, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds, sent his cholesterol sky-rocketing, and caused serious harm to his liver. McDonald’s removed Super Size fries and drinks from its menu six weeks after the film’s release, although it said Super Size Me did not influence its decision.

68. The “I’m Lovin’ It” McDonald’s jingle was written by Pharell and recorded by Justin Timberlake.

69. Ottawa Senators goalie Andrew Hammond is nicknamed Hamburglar. How he earned it: A fan threw a burger on the ice at Hammond after a recent win (in 12 starts, he’d amassed an impressive 10-0-1 record); the goalie graciously accepted it but did not eat it because he said it was too cold. To ensure that he always has access to a hot burger, Hammond received—courtesy of McDonald’s in Canada—a special card that entitles him to a lifetime of free eats.

70. Octogenarians Carl and Barbara Becker of Virginia were regulars at their local McDonald’s, where they liked stopping in for “scrunch”—a snack between lunch and supper. One day, an employee was sweeping up near them, and when asked if it bothered them, the couple answered that it did. A manager then told the Beckers that they’d exceeded their allowed 30 minutes in the restaurant and had to leave. The Beckers wrote a heartfelt letter to their local paper in which Carl explained how the incident had marred their McDonald’s ritual. For the pair, scrunch is “a sweet time of fellowship, which we enjoy, which helps sustain our marriage of 63 years,” wrote Carl. In response, McDonald’s corporate offices sent the couple coupons for two small coffees. The Beckers refused them but said they’d still patronize the chain—just not the Culpeper location.

71. The Beckers were not left burger-less, however. Shawn Moss, who owns Shawn’s Smokehouse BBQ restaurant in Culpeper, was so moved when he heard about the couple’s experience that he offered them one free “scrunch” a week for the rest of their lives.

72. In 2014, 18-year-old Stian Ytterdahl from Norway had a tattoo artist ink a McDonald’s receipt onto his arm after his friends dared him; a week later, he had the same receipt tattooed on his other arm. For the rest of his life, he’ll always know what he ate at 7:36 PM on March 24, 2014: a Coke, three cheeseburgers, a cheeseburger Happy Meal, a McFlurry NonStop with three extra toppings, and an extra Happy Meal toy. This is why you should always ask for your receipt at McDonald’s.

74. Scientists studying McDonald’s patrons found that female diners ate less when they were eating in mixed-sex groups rather than in same-sex groups, while male diners ate more in mixed-sex groups than in mixed-sex pairs, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Health Psychology.

75. While only McDonald’s is on Twitter (with more than 2.8 million followers), both McDonald’s and Ronald McDonald have Instagram accounts. McDonald’s boasts 565,000 followers to Ronald’s 10,900.